Midland County Sheriff Gary Painter said Brandin Conley’s confession that he killed 26-year-old Amanda Hankins makes it a “presentable case to go to the grand jury and get an indictment.”

But Painter said more work must be done after this past week’s discovery of Hankins’ body buried in a shallow grave outside of Conley and Hankins’ shared residence in northwest Midland County.

Authorities have so far recovered the pistol they said Conley used to shoot Hankins in the back of the head after they had engaged in a fight weeks ago, Painter said. The weapon was turned over by a neighboring resident. The round that the 21-year-old Conley had fired was also recovered by authorities.

Prosecutors are still waiting on results from the autopsy of Hankins’ body, which had already undergone days of decomposition, to mount additional evidence against Conley, Painter said.

“To tie all of the loose ends, all of the rest of this evidence must come into pay, and it has to be complete -- that’s the way I want it,” he said.

Meanwhile, the man accused of killing his girlfriend is being held at the Midland County Jail on a $750,000 bond. Conley confessed to the murder Thursday after deputies discovered her body. Hankins had been missing for about two weeks.

Painter said Friday that prosecutors will seek the furthest extent of punishment for the first-degree murder charges. Having not committed the killing in the act of another felony, his charges do not amount to capital murder -- the charge for which a perpetrator can be sentence to capital punishment.

“We look for the elements that create and prove the most serious offense, and then we work the case from that standpoint,” Painter said. “We’re going to seek the highest punishment allowed by law.

Early Thursday morning, the Midland County Sheriff’s Office received a tip that conveyed specific information to the body’s location and how it was buried. The information reached the deputy patrolling the area off West County Road 60 in the northwest corner of the county. After following the lead, the deputy discovered the body by 12:30 a.m.

“I can’t say exactly that it was anonymous, but it was a call that we appreciated,” Painter said.

The case resembles one involving the 1998 murder of Daytina Blair Hulslander, who was also 26 when reported missing, according to a previous Reporter-Telegram report. Hulslander had been missing for years, eluding massive air and land searches before a quail hunter came upon her skeletal remains in Glasscock County.

“She had three young kids, her parents were the ones that called in her missing. We looked and couldn’t find anything. We checked the house, did a lot of forensics and found things that we thought would lead to a forensic discovery,” Painter said.

Upon the quail hunter’s discovery of her skull, authorities arrest her husband, Alan Hulslander. Alan pleaded no-contest to murdering his wife and accepted a 12-year prison term in 2002.

Painter also noted the increasing frequency of murder cases within the county and cited the region’s increasing population. In February, Dan Higgins received two life sentences after pleading guilty to the October shooting death of Midland County Deputy Sgt. Mike Naylor.

“It’s scary. We didn’t used to have this. We used to have a murder every two or three years,” he said.